Navigation

impossible scores

My brother and I were talking about impossible hands to get. We have always known that 19 is an impossible hand to get. It has even been passed down in our family that if you get a 0 when counting a hand that you got a 19. But we were trying to figure out if a 25, 26, or 27 was possible. Can any one clear this up for us and if you can get them, how?

recently I made a java program to score cribbage hands, then added to it so it can take your 5 card hand and tell you the best card to give to the crib(averages scores for each possible 4 card hand with 47 possible face cards, adds possible points if your crib, detracts if opponent's). I saw this post and decided to try and prove that there are no 19, 25, 26, or 27 point hands, so I adjusted the program so it would loop through every possible cribbage hand(12,994,800), score each one and count it. These are my results:

You did in fact prove that those hands cannot be scored, but these statistics are everywhere including books and online sites. Your program cannot tell what card is the "best" to throw into the crib (yours or your opponents). That can only be determined by board position, tendencies of your pone and other factors.

OK, try this one then. QJ55, 5 is cut in the suit of the jack in hand. 6 15s for 12, 3 of a kind for 18, and one for his nob makes 19 points. Did we do something wrong here? My brother just scored this

As you can see, getting 19 is impossible. Lets look at QJ55 with a 5 starter card of the same suit as the jack. You thought you had 19, but you really had 21 points. You missed the three 5s equals 15 and the missing two points. You owe me a dollar.

there are 3 combinations of 3,3,4,5 (15) so this would score 6
there are 3 combinations of 3,3 (Pair/2 of a kind) this would also score 6
there are 3 combinations of 3,4,5 (Run/straight) this would score 9

Of course it cannot be possible. That's why we call a blank hand a 19 hand. So, you've missed some points is all. I'm going to go way out on a limb and say it was the missing 2 points from the three 5's (for 15) that you missed. Score that hand 21.

Please let us put this discussion to bed. You cannot make 19 points in cribbage. Ever. I will make this deal. If you can show me how you can make 19 in a cribbage hand and prove it, I will pay you $1000. If, however; you are wrong, you promise to pay me $1.00. Are there any takers out there?